Tag Archives: Imagine TV

Has anyone seen any sponsorship evidence that this press release was anything other than another failed attempt to lure investors to waste more money on Imagine TV, or as its called now, Imagination TV? (click to enlarge)

Mr. Steven Samblis, CEO or IC Places, Inc. appears to fancy press releases such as the Reed’s announcement to lure new investors into investing in his company. Its been almost 4-months since that press release, and it appears the announcement was misleading at best, fraudulent at worst. How does a company release a formal press release like that and the public never sees anything come from it. We have not seen one add from Reed’s appearing on any of the IC Places, Inc, Imagine TV, Imagination TV, Drivein TV, or any other medium associated with Mr. Steven Samblis.

The press release touted Reeds as the “first official launch sponsor” of Imagine TV. Given that Imagine TV has come and gone (no one seem to know why, but some think it was due to copyright infringement with the other Imagine TV’s) and now that Mr. Samblis is promoting Imagination TV, there is still no evidence of this sponsorship.

The Reeds press release is but one of many press releases that have never come to fruition. Many would call that a pattern. It would appear that his press releases are just about as reliable as his SEC filings. There are multiple documented instances of misleading and inaccurate information contained within the SEC filings, now it appears Mr. Samblis’s press releases can be added to the pile of misleading and inaccurate documents

Is the most recent press release touting the Uncommon Denominator going to succumb to the same fate as the Reeds announcement ? It follows a long line of previous press releases that seem to have failed, or worse, been simply propaganda aimed at improving the dismal performance of the company’s stock ( PNCH ). Perhaps one or two complete failures of the initiatives touted in previous press releases could be called bad luck, or a coincidence, but seemingly every one ??? Again, many would call that a pattern, and point to the extremely low reliability rate of the information.

History can not be changed… and this company, as well as Mr. Steven Samblis, has plenty of history. A simple Google search will support much of the history reported about this company. If you are thinking about investing in this company… even if its just for “flipping”… take 5-minutes and do some research on the company before making any decisions. It could be the best 5-minutes you ever spent.

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It appears to be common knowledge and/or belief that the CEO of IC Places, Inc., Mr. Steven Samblis, is using false pretenses to motivate investors by using multiple aliases on message boards. It is believed that the most recent attempt to do this by using the alias “JapanInc” has been thwarted by the Administrators of Investors Hub. That alias has been suspended until March 16th, 2017 (see below graphic, click to enlarge). His other alias HollywoodFastLane has been “booted” also.

It is also a widely held belief that he has used (and perhaps continues to use) other aliases such as “dotd“, “mrighttrade“, and “zurich” to name a few, in order to promote the company and attempt to appear the endorsement is coming from an independent investor or potential investor. If this action can be proven to actually be conduct by Mr. Samblis, and at this point there is little doubt by many who know his practices and writing style, this appears to an an actionable activity by the SEC. Take a look at the below graphic. It is an excerpt from an article here that details a provision in SEC regulations that regulate such activity.

The SEC regulations were aimed at prohibiting “any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance.”,which basically means any intent, action or vehicle, such as message boards, to contrive a scheme to mislead others.

Let’s look at the sections (a), (b), and (c) of the Act.

(a) To employ any device (message boards), scheme (appear to be another person), or artifice to defraud. Obviously the use of an alias and indicating the writer/poster is an impartial contributor is covered by this statute. This is probably the most blatant disregard for integrity with investors. Its shameful if a CEO of a public company feels the need to deceive investors by masquerading as satisfied investor. Can he not find at least one investor that actually supports his company ?

(b) To make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading. WOW… several instances come to mind that would fall under this section, such as the use of aliases for one. Regarding the second part relating to “omit” facts that would perpetuate a false and misleading statement… how about Mr. Samblis not commenting on the $194,000. per airport deal with Clearvision. Mr. Samblis let that VERY material fact go unclarified to this day. Also, SEC 10-K/Q filings and statements regarding no lawsuits against the company (details here), and statements made regarding the president’s departure (details here). Additionally Mr. Samblis’s statements about selling shares of the company to finance ongoing operations (details here). We could go on and on but its obvious that there are many examples that would fall under this section.

(c) To engage act, practice, or course of business which operates, or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person, in conjunction with the sale of any security. Many would argue that the entire premise of IC Places, Inc. is to sell shares of stock to finance the whimsical lifestyle of Mr. Samblis. After almost 10-years of doing business, and after 3 reverse splits of the stock, the PPS hovers just over triple zeros again. Mr. Samblis left intact the 2-billion share structure which many believe is in force to allow Mr. Samblis to sell as many shares as he needs to keep the cash flowing in. Currently, it appears, there have been several new companies initiated that are outside of the corporate veil, and many believe much of any revenue is being diverted to those companies in order to shield such from corporate investors, (details here). If any, or much, of this is accurate, those actions certainly constitute fraud and deceit upon any person in conjunction with the sale of any security.

Should you agree that the above should at least be investigated by the SEC, here is the link to their complaint page. The SEC treats all tips, complaints and referrals as confidential and nonpublic, and does not disclose such information to third parties, except in limited circumstances authorized by statute, rule, or other provisions of law. There are also additional confidentiality protections if you so desire. See the enforcement tips page here for details.

There is an excellent quote from Edmund Burke… “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Will YOU further Mr. Samblis’s actions by doing nothing ?

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PNCH falls to PINK status, and is headed for trip-zeros (again) after 3 reverse splits. This performance would be hard to duplicate even if you tried.

WOW… textbook picture of what NOT to do when running a company ! And… we believe all of this – ALL OF THIS… could have been prevented had Mr. Steven Samblis, CEO of IC Places, Inc. just acted like a normal CEO. But instead he ridiculed and berated his investors that asked him questions he did not want to answer. He made terrible business decisions by letting his ego and arrogance influence his actions and decisions. He misrepresented the information about the company and its performance. His actions of hiding behind multiple aliases on message boards only served to reinforce the thinking that he was avoiding being held accountable for his actions and statements.

Mr. Samblis’s actions just reinforce the concept of… you can change the name of the company, you can change the ticker symbol, you can even change the core concept of the company from a website to a broadcast multimedia company – but the one thing that did not change through all these 9+ years… was the CEO ! The history of this company, and the actions of its CEO should be taught in business schools around the country. Failure, and what leads to it, is teachable, and many could learn from the avoidable mistakes of Mr. Samblis.

Will Mr. Samblis quit? Highly doubtful. As long as there are people willing to invest without researching Mr. Samblis’s past, he will likely continue on… likely using other people’s money of course. However… there are a dedicated group of [previous] investors out there that will do their very best to educate potential investors about Mr. Samblis’s past business decisions, actions, and performance.

It appeared Mr. Samblis just didn’t understand the power of today’s technology regarding the ease of recording historical events, and access to historical information. He also didn’t seem to understand the power of the investing community in getting the word out about the company, and his actions running it. With today’s social media vehicles, its financial suicide to actively offend those that you need to rely on for support. It will be said by many investors that lost money investing in this company, that it was the naysayers that caused its downfall. We say… that is putting the carriage before the horse, for if there would have been no bad decisions, misrepresentations, investor disrespect, and poor performance of the company… there would have been nothing to bash. Mr. Samblis gave the naysayers everything they needed to bash the company, and handed it to them on a silver platter. They were only doing what needed to be done to warn others about what was likely to happen to their investments if they continued to believe in Mr. Samblis.

Look up Train Wreck in the dictionary, and you are likely to see a picture of the IC Places train careening off the rails, with Mr. Samblis at the controls, with a dazed and confused look on his face. As they say… its just a dam shame, because it was a preventable disaster.

Well, it seems as thought Mr. Steven Samblis, CEO of IC Places, Inc. (formally IC Punch Media, Inc., which was previously IC Places, Inc before it became IC Punch Media, Inc.) has recently surfaced on the message boards promoting his company wares. He even answered some questions, and even more rare, he made some posts on Investors Hangout, the board that enthusiastically supports his company and efforts. By support we mean goes so far as to censor some posters who state their opinion, thereby giving novice readers a biased view of the company and its CEO by deleting their posts so that readers only see what the moderators want (or allow) them to see. (exactly the same thing they despised about LieHub board deleting positive company posts)

Its good to see Mr. Samblis actively promoting the company, and we certainly endorse such, however… are message boards the prudent place for such promotion? How effective can that be? If this is Mr. Samblis’s idea of active promotion (i.e. advertising), it seems to fall in line with many of his past business decisions. Past business decisions that have his company currently trading at .0002 as we write this. When looking at at the history of this company, Mr. Samblis has been CEO for over 8 years… and his company is currently trading at .0002. That does not instill confidence with investors that somehow Mr. Samblis can perform a miracle and turn this company around, when in over 8 years he has not been able to turn in a better current performance than .0002. Granted about 2 years ago the PPS hit around .05, however that was short-lived and would be considered by many as an anomaly.

Is it possible someone could have done a worse job at leading this company ??? Sure, its possible the company could be bankrupt and out of business, however when the CEO of a company can leverage investor money to keep the company afloat, and somehow investors keep investing, why would any CEO bankrupt the company and voluntary relinquish the flow of available cash. As long as there are gullible investors willing to give the CEO money, it would be a new level of stupidity for a CEO to cease operations under those circumstances.

Now, we mentioned above that Mr. Samblis also answered some questions during his visit to the message boards. Not many, but as an example, a poster asked “steve who owns imagine tv.?“. Mr. Samblis responded: “Currently Imagine is a separate entity with IC Places supplying all the content. VU is making 50% of the ad revenues on FilmOn on its channel.”. Now, we suspect the question had its roots in wanting more information about the relationship between Mr. Samblis’s newest venture Imagine TV, and the public company PNCH that people have invested in. Like was there any PNCH funds used to create the Imagine TV venture, and are any of its expenses being run through the public company? Also, where would any revenue be recorded if Imagine TV were to have any sales of products or advertising revenue?

In another example a poster point-blank asks the question… “How is Imaginetv associated with IC Places?”. In Mr. Samblis’s classic evasive response mode he replies… “We will talk about this shortly. I am not prepared to go over everything right now in regards to this.”. Classic Samblis response !

So, interpreting Mr. Samblis’s answer literally, it appears IC Places (which is part of the public company) encounters the expenses of producing content used for Imagine TV, yet because Imagine TV is not a part of the public company PNCH… any revenue generated by said content stays with Mr. Samblis’s personal accounts. If you are an investor in PNCH… how does that sit with you ? Of course all of this is concluded speculation because Mr. Samblis has not been forthcoming explaining the relationships between all of the different entities he is involved with. Why ??? Anything that is shrouded in secrecy is highly suspect to be questionable, or worse. Investors have been asking for clarification repeatedly, however all they get (if they get anything) is misleading and evasive answers like the above.

So folks… with little or no information, and with what information that is available being evasive and misleading, and, with a track record of running the company for over 8 years and currently having a PPS of .0002… what are investors to think of this sudden push to advertise his company on message boards? Well, perhaps this post below sums it up for most (click to enlarge). The poster was, and had been, a long time supporter of Mr. Samblis and his company. We just wonder how many others are out there with the same sentiments about Mr. Samblis and the company. ALSO… how many new investors will be willing to invest in this company given all that has transpired to date, and the secrecy that still surrounds much, if not all, of the actions of Mr. Samblis.

PNCH investors must feel like mushrooms… kept in the dark, and fed horse manure.

Yes folks… looks like yet another company name change is in the works. Only this time the name appears to be going back to the previously used IC Places, Inc., and it appears to have the word Network attached to it this time around, as well as sporting a new color scheme (red). Will there be another ticker symbol change ? Will it go back to ICPA ? The name change has been confirmed by Mr. Samblis himself on the IC Places Facebook page as can be seen by the graphic below (click to enlarge). The 22 hours ago references 2/13/2014.

Also interesting… take notice to the copyright notice that now appears on the IC Places website (graphic below). Notice there are none of the previously listed shows. At one time Mr. Samblis advised message board readers to view this area for assurances that he still maintained ownership of the listed shows. Could this mean that Mr. Samblis now has lost the rights to all the shows previously listed in this spot? (remember folks… EVERYTHING means something ! )

Now… one might ask… what prompted this name change (at this time) back to the previously used IC Places? Let’s see, possibly related to any pre-trial arbitration meetings maybe? As everyone knows, after the Punch breakup Mr. Samblis insisted he owned the Punch name (and related assets)… but that was before he said they were poison and suing to get them back was a waste of time and money because Mr. Collins was “judgement proof” because he was broke. But… all that was before he most recently tried to float the idea that he was actively suing Mr. Collins again to get the assets back (which of course included the Punch name). WOW… talk about flip-flop !

So… the latest version of the story is… the company’s name will change back to essentially what it was before the Collins/Samblis merger. So what happened to all the flamboyant statements and innuendos about getting the Punch assets back? Does this mean Mr. Collins won ??? Kinda looks that way. The short story looks to be… they merged, they broke up, Mr. Samblis said he owned the Punch assets and name after the breakup… and now Mr. Samblis is changing the name of the company back to what it was before the merger. Check back tomorrow folks… maybe there will be another version yet to come.

AND… continuing the questions on revenue. To date, there has been no explanation on the accounting of any revenue generated from any of these new endeavors that have come to light lately. There will be those who do not question anything Mr. Samblis does, i.e. follow blindly anything and everything he does… however then there are the more rational and logical investors that dare to question just what the company is doing with their invested dollars. As we questioned in our post here, where is the revenue being recorded. It is inconceivable that within ALL of Mr. Samblis’s efforts, Clearvision, IC Places website, etc. not $1.00 of revenue has been generated over the last several reporting periods. Look at the last few SEC filings related to revenue… not $1.00 has been recorded as flowing into the coffers of PNCH. How can that be ??? And remember… we are not talking about “profit”… we are talking “revenue”. If you buy a widget for resale and pay $10.00 for it… and you sell that widget for $8.00… you have a negative “profit” of $2.00… BUT… you have revenue of $8.00. So even if Mr. Samblis is not making a profit on running advertising, and/or not making a profit on the Clearvision deal… where is the REVENUE from those actions ??? Could it be that the revenue is being accounted for in another one of his non-public companies… and only the expenses are being run through the public company??? Either Mr. Samblis is the worst business man alive in not being able to generate even $1.00 in revenue for the vast amounts of investment dollars the company has squandered, or, the revenue is being recorded somewhere else. Of course there is always the possibility that revenue is being generated but is not being recorded anywhere… but that would be even more reckless than diverting revenue for personal gain. The IRS and the SEC does not have a sense of humor when it comes to defrauding the public by failing to report earned revenue. One has to question…why the secrecy surrounding revenue ???

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Well… there appears to be some progress…maybe. Mr. Steven Samblis, CEO of IC Punch Media announced today (via twitter feed from his @Orlandolive twitter feed) that ImagineTV is launching. The website is here. If you don’t like to read, there is a link here where Mr. Samblis is being interviewed about the launch and content (appears to be a “promotional” video).

Without any further explanation, which is par for the course for Mr. Samblis, one is left to assume, speculate and/or conclude that this appears to be an extension, or rebirth, of his Self Help Center endeavor. If you navigate to the Self Help Center website, you are now simply re-directed to the IC Places website.

One thing that jumped out at us upon initial review, was the “relationship” of the new initiative. In the graphic below (click to enlarge), notice the highlighted section. This notation leaves open the question as to what extent this initiative will benefit the shareholders of PNCH. In our post here about where’s the revenue, one must question where any revenue and/or profit will be accounted for as a result of any sales THIS initiative has.

Also notice the reference in the graphic below. IC Places has “invested” in Imagine TV. What does that mean ??? If invested in the traditional terms, does that mean Mr. Samblis, through IC Places Inc. has bought shares in the Imagine TV company? If so, how much investment, and where did the funds come from for the investment – Mr. Samblis’s “personal” funds, or PNCH funds? AND… like VU Television, there appears to be confusion surrounding multiple Imagine TV companies all using the same or slight variation of the Imagine name (sort of like MYimaginetv). So if there was really an investment, i.e. an exchange of funds, which company was the investment placed in?

As usual, with no explanation, and the past history of questionable creditability of Mr. Samblis… this new initiative creates more questions than it provides answers. What, on the surface, appears to be a good thing, may in fact be not so much.

We guess, stay tuned, hopefully there will be a press release explaining the relationship. However, as press releases go, they usually create more questions then they answer, and, even if Mr. Samblis were to personally provide an explanation to the investors of PNCH, it will likely be code-speak as suggested in this excerpt from our post here.

Mr. Samblis… please provide a meaningful explanation of the relationship arrangement posted on the MyImagineTV website, along with what, if any, benefit this new initiative will have for the investors of PNCH. And please… no code-speak !